Site sponsor BigBadToyStore has listed their pre-order of Takara Tomy's Transformes Go! figures:

GO1 Kenzan Samurai (Police Car)

GO2 Jinbu Samurai (Jet)

GO3 Ganoh Samurai (Fire Truck)

GO4 Gaidora

They have also confirmed that GO1 through G03 will be combiners of some sort. No additional details or images at the moment, but Singapore based retailer The Falcon's Hangar is reporting they will also feature light and sound gimmicks. The Falcon's Hangar is also reporting that GO4 will be a metallic repaint of Deluxe Lazerback.

We've received initial information on the Transformers GO! Line (Japanese release of Beast Hunters) - We can confirm that the first 3 figures do have some sort of combining function, but no details and no images are ready at this time.

RiD, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron were all really good and (all four of them) had great associated toy lines.

And Masterforce was an amazing series.

Though, Armada's toyline was very poor in the articulation department with most (not all, but most) of its figures, thanks to the gimmick.

But there were absolutely some gems. Armada Megatron is probably my favorite Megatron in terms of overall design, bar none. Tidal Wave (whom I recently snagged on ebay for an awesome price, that made my freaking DAY) I'm waiting eagrly to receive, because it's just glorious! Obviously there's the threesome of greatness that is Armada Prime. While he lacks articulation...he's just so cool. The greatness of that combo is simply undeniable!

These are every series that Takara has done without collaborating with Hasbro. So find a shitty series within that list, and I shall agree with you when it comes to "GO!".

While I personally don't think any of them are that bad, I've encountered plenty of folks who would easily pick Scramble City, The Headmasters, Zone, Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, Car Robots, and RobotMasters from that list to answer your question. In other words, pretty much all of them are looked down upon.

I myself like most of them, but I'm but one person and do not reflect mass opinion.

These are every series that Takara has done without collaborating with Hasbro. So find a shitty series within that list, and I shall agree with you when it comes to "GO!".

While I personally don't think any of them are that bad, I've encountered plenty of folks who would easily pick Scramble City, The Headmasters, Zone, Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, Car Robots, and RobotMasters from that list to answer your question. In other words, pretty much all of them are looked down upon.

I myself like most of them, but I'm but one person and do not reflect mass opinion.

If those were people who were introduced to the franchise around the time of the Unicron Trilogy and beyond. Mostly because the counter-views that had me only hear mixed reviews about CarRobots and no regards to the Beast Era stuff were from those who grew up with the series. And the worse I heard was the kid friendly stuff in Headmasters could have been done better, the Cybertron Headmaster Juniors held Masterforce back a bit, Victory was a bit much, Zone was way too compressed, and none of them knew which Robot Masters continuity was official.

Then again, the worse series are portions of season 3/2010, The Rebirth, and the English dubbed/edited versions of CarRobots and the Micron Dentsu Trilogy. And if those who you have met say otherwise, we might as well team up and lecture them on what makes a series good... And what makes a series be over-hyped/bad.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:If those were people who were introduced to the franchise around the time of the Unicron Trilogy and beyond.

Most of them were folks who grew up on G1, to be honest.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:Mostly because the counter-views that had me only hear mixed reviews about CarRobots and no regards to the Beast Era stuff were from those who grew up with the series. And the worse I heard was the kid friendly stuff in Headmasters could have been done better, the Cybertron Headmaster Juniors held Masterforce back a bit, Victory was a bit much, Zone was way too compressed, and none of them knew which Robot Masters continuity was official.

Most of the complaints I recall are as follows:

Scramble City:

They didn't like how it felt even more like a toy commericial than any of the U.S. G1 episodes did, having little-to-no real story and just one big non-nutritional fight meant to just promote toy after toy after toy.

Its cliffhanger was never resolved.

The Headmasters:

They didn't like how that show changed so many of the personalities of the existing G1 characters (like making Cyclonus a bumbling comic foil when he used to be one of the most competent Decpeticon soldiers of all).

They felt the new characters were boring with either barely any personality (all four Autobot Headmasters being "brash" dudes instead of unique characters) or were just anime cliches (Sixshot being a super ninja bot).

Daniel's behavior was like that of a toddler when he supposed to be around 10 years old.

Wheelie getting so much focus and being made into a punk.

The Star Trek-styled planet-hopping subplot that amounted to nothing.

Galvatron surviving Ground Zero of a planetary explosion, yet being defeated in ice by "Friendship".

The Headmasters' magic friendship-based powers.

Masterforce:

Hmmm... thinking about it, I can't really remember that many complaints for this one.

Victory:

They didn't like how the first half of the series was completely episodic with little to no plot advancement happening.

They disliked how Victory Leo was less like his own character and more of just a means to sell an upgrade attachment for Star Saber.

They didn't like how flat of a character Star Saber was, being a Mr. Perfect for no other reason than just "because he is".

Zone:

They didn't like how the show brought back lots of old characters just to kill them off again.

They didn't like how Dai Atlas was another one-dimensional character like Star Saber, being just another Mr. Perfect.

Beast Wars II:

They disliked how childish and silly the show was compared to the American Beast Wars cartoon.

They disliked how inactive a leader Galvatron was, sleeping for most the time.

They disliked the "cutesy" gag stuff with Artemis and Moon.

Beast Wars Special (specifically the "Lio Convoy Kiki Ippatsu" part):

They disliked how predictable and cliche the story was (youngster is duped by the bad guys, gets into trouble, has to be rescued, and the bad guys' ultimate weapon gets beaten by a deus ex machina).

Beast Wars Neo:

Mostly the same complaints as Beast Wars II.

They also disliked the Star Trek ripoff feel it had.

Car Robots:

They disliked the campy feel of the show.

They considered it dull and unfunny, as tiring as BWII and Neo were.

They disliked the so-called main bad guy just sitting on his throne so often while his minions did all the work.

They disliked the comedy bits that were supposed to be funny but weren't.

They disliked how the certain characters who were supposed to be serious threats were just generic and dull.

They disliked the anime quirks and cliches that the show made heavy use of.

They disliked how Magnus would always just happen to conveniently pop up at exactly the right moment to combine with his brother.

RobotMasters:

They disliked how it just felt like a cash grab with nothing substantial in either of its episodes, which were even more like toy commericials than ever.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:Then again, the worse series are portions of season 3/2010, The Rebirth, and the English dubbed/edited versions of CarRobots and the Micron Dentsu Trilogy. And if those who you have met say otherwise, we might as well team up and lecture them on what makes a series good... And what makes a series be over-hyped/bad.

To be honest, season 3 of G1 gets mixed reviews at best. lots of folks like it, while others don't.

The Rebirth is seen as hit or miss with some.

RiD gets about the same complaints as its Japanese counterpart, but it does have a cult following (I personally loved RiD as a kid and still hold a deep respect for it).

The Unicron Trilogy also gets mixed reviews, with Energon being almost unanimously regarded as the worst of the worst (and not just for its dub, since Super Link was bad to begin with).

Cybertron/Galaxy Force seems to get the most praise of the three, with both versions being considerably good for different reasons (where one fails, the other succeeds, and vice versa).

Armada was most crippled by its dub, but since no one's ever bothered to subtitle Micron Densetsu, not too much has been compared between the two versions. Yet, Armada still gets a lot of respect for introducing new fans and reintroducing old fans in the Transformers at a time when the brand was starting anew, but it's still very flawed.

Sabr, sounds like you encountered some good ol' American fans. I heard similar complaints from those who require their anime be Americanized. Seriously. I complained about Keroro Gunso being too Americanized, and one person said that it was better that way.

So yeah... With them, just have them check out who worked on the series. That, and when those episodes originally aired. Because when I did, I even found myself liking Masterforce more (even though I am, once again, iffy about the Godmasters and Headmaster Juniors). Oh, and check out the episodes starring Sky Lynx. You will notice that even when he is on a planet, and it is daylight, his scenes are mostly in space.

But yeah - This series, I wonder what they have planned. I just know it is not attached to their version of PRIME, which has me hoping for a second manga series to pick up on. Kinda like how Keroro Gunso had the samurai spin-off going. That, and this entices me to see S3 of PRIME that much more.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:Sabr, sounds like you encountered some good ol' American fans.

Well, yeah, but that's to be expected. Japan simply has a different mindset and style from the U.S., what with it catering to a younger audience and such.

In my experience, the only Japanese TF cartoon I'd truly consider to be great is Masterforce, with Cybertron/Galaxy Force also being a really good (not great, but good) contender, but both are admittedly not without flaws.

Beast Wars is still favorite, followed by Animated, and then Masterforce tied with Rescue Bots, then a 3-way tie of Beast Machines/Prime/RiD (the latter as a guilty pleasure, I know RiD/Car Robots isn't great), and then Cybertron, with the rest of all the TF cartoons being below the "favorites".

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:I heard similar complaints from those who require their anime be Americanized. Seriously. I complained about Keroro Gunso being too Americanized, and one person said that it was better that way.

I haven't seen that series, but I have heard about its dub. And from what I'm told, that was a rare case in FUNimation simply could not stay as faithful to the Japanese version as they tend to and make it work in English without some compromise, thanks to the nature of that show.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:So yeah... With them, just have them check out who worked on the series. That, and when those episodes originally aired. Because when I did, I even found myself liking Masterforce more (even though I am, once again, iffy about the Godmasters and Headmaster Juniors).

I really don't think many would care much about who made the shows when they may not be familiar with the people who made them and/or their other works. Don't forget, anime is still a niche market in the West.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:Oh, and check out the episodes starring Sky Lynx. You will notice that even when he is on a planet, and it is daylight, his scenes are mostly in space.

Yeah, AKOM's animation errors are legendary.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:But yeah - This series, I wonder what they have planned. I just know it is not attached to their version of PRIME, which has me hoping for a second manga series to pick up on. Kinda like how Keroro Gunso had the samurai spin-off going. That, and this entices me to see S3 of PRIME that much more.

I wonder if season 3 of Prime will even air in Japan. It'd be quite shocking if they only stopped at episode 52 and ended the series with the Decepticons winning.

Though, if Go! really is kept separate from the Prime Japanese dub, do you think the dubbers would wind up keeping Predaking's name, or do you think they'd still be obligated to use the Go! toy's name of "Dragotron"?

Sorry to say it but there is one Jap series that I wish I could get my time back from watching and that is RID. Personally it's an insult to Transformers. I know that these shows are essentially 22 minutes commercials but really?!?

It almost seemed like they took another cartoon and put TF's in the original casts place. From horrible art to boring (to me anyway) story. RID = FAIL to me.

I'm honestly still catching up on some of my Jap TF shows. (Im about half way the Masterforce series.) But I've seen, what I believe, is about 75% of every TF toon ever. MF and the Jap Beast wars are all I've left to watch. But just thinking of RID makes me ill. As far as Jap goes, I happened to see RID first and it wasn't until I'd seen some clips of the other shows that I even entertained watching them. I was afraid they were going to be awful like RID. Thank the all spark that wasn't the case.

I won't say anything about GO! because I don't know anymore than anyone else. An undetermined combiner and a redeco. I'm not ready to bash it in just yet. Hatred should be earned and assigned not just freely given.

Antron wrote:Sorry to say it but there is one Jap series that I wish I could get my time back from watching and that is RID. Personally it's an insult to Transformers. I know that these shows are essentially 22 minutes commercials but really?!?

It almost seemed like they took another cartoon and put TF's in the original casts place. From horrible art to boring (to me anyway) story. RID = FAIL to me.

It's understandable why some don't like RiD, but this particular notion has piqued my curiosity and raises a few questions:

When you started watching it, were you aware of what kind of show it was (i.e. - a lighthearted children's comedy series)?

If no, what kind of expectations did you have for it going into it?

If yes, how open-minded were you going into it?

How old were you when you started watching it?

Did you watch the entire show with all episodes in order, or just part of it?

If you did see it all, did the addition of the Decepticons, Ultra Magnus, and/or Fortress Maximus have no effect on your enjoyment of the series?

Were you or are you now aware of how it was one of several shows that were badly affected by 9/11 (meaning that, had 9/11 not happened, its quality might have been a bit higher)?

Just a few, out of curiosity.

Antron wrote:I'm honestly still catching up on some of my Jap TF shows. (Im about half way the Masterforce series.) But I've seen, what I believe, is about 75% of every TF toon ever. MF and the Jap Beast wars are all I've left to watch.

Good luck finding/watching Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, since those two have never seen any kind of release in the West, nor have they been subtitled in English all the way through.

Antron wrote:But just thinking of RID makes me ill. As far as Jap goes, I happened to see RID first and it wasn't until I'd seen some clips of the other shows that I even entertained watching them. I was afraid they were going to be awful like RID. Thank the all spark that wasn't the case.

Interesting. Which other shows would this be referring to?

Antron wrote:I won't say anything about GO! because I don't know anymore than anyone else. An undetermined combiner and a redeco. I'm not ready to bash it in just yet. Hatred should be earned and assigned not just freely given.

Sabrblade wrote:It's understandable why some don't like RiD, but this particular notion has piqued my curiosity and raises a few questions:

When you started watching it, were you aware of what kind of show it was (i.e. - a lighthearted children's comedy series)?

If no, what kind of expectations did you have for it going into it?

If yes, how open-minded were you going into it?

How old were you when you started watching it?

Did you watch the entire show with all episodes in order, or just part of it?

If you did see it all, did the addition of the Decepticons, Ultra Magnus, and/or Fortress Maximus have no effect on your enjoyment of the series?

Were you or are you now aware of how it was one of several shows that were badly affected by 9/11 (meaning that, had 9/11 not happened, its quality might have been a bit higher)?

Just a few, out of curiosity.

I had no expectations of it or no knowledge. I was 32ish. It was really the only series I didn't know anything about at the time (2002ish) and stumbled across it on the net. Watched it front to back. No the big boys did nothing for me. I don't think 9/11 was an issue. I think they just went with the popular animation/anime style at the time and it suffered for it.

Sabrblade wrote:Good luck finding/watching Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, since those two have never seen any kind of release in the West, nor have they been subtitled in English all the way through.

I have what I think are complete subtitled versions. I found the entire Jap collection all seem to me TFNIHON or something like that. So far so good. Haven't got to BW yet.

Sabrblade wrote:Interesting. Which other shows would this be referring to?

By other shows I meant the Jap TF series like head masters, masterforce, ect. I hadn't seen any Jap TF series at the time and RID was the first I happened to encounter.

Sabrblade wrote:

Antron wrote:I won't say anything about GO! because I don't know anymore than anyone else. An undetermined combiner and a redeco. I'm not ready to bash it in just yet. Hatred should be earned and assigned not just freely given.

Antron wrote:I had no expectations of it or no knowledge. I was 32ish. It was really the only series I didn't know anything about at the time (2002ish) and stumbled across it on the net. Watched it front to back. No the big boys did nothing for me. I don't think 9/11 was an issue. I think they just went with the popular animation/anime style at the time and it suffered for it.

Oh, 9/11 was a BIG factor in the show's quality. A whole lot of censorship and rewrites came about because of that event. Some episodes that aired in the U.S. were never aired again, some didn't even air in the U.S. at all (they aired in other countries like the UK, though). Some were even shown out of order and thus were rescripted to accommodate for the changes. RiD was completely victimized by 9/11, along with most of Fox Kids' other shows from the time (to this day, 90's Spider-Man never recovered from how 9/11 botched it, and it was a show that had finished well before 9/11 even occurred).

Antron wrote:I have what I think are complete subtitled versions. I found the entire Jap collection all seem to me TFNIHON or something like that. So far so good. Haven't got to BW yet.

Though, a group from waaaaaaaay back in the day called Ctenosaur did sub some of Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo, but only the first 12 episodes of BWII and even less of BWNeo. But, they did also sub the BWII movie.

There was also another group, GPTHW, who tried to sub both series, but only got about five episodes in for each, and I personally find their subs questionable.

So, yeah, neither series fully made it all the way through in being subtitled.

Doesn't help that DVDs for each didn't first come out until last year and year before last.

Antron wrote:By other shows I meant the Jap TF series like head masters, masterforce, ect. I hadn't seen any Jap TF series at the time and RID was the first I happened to encounter.

what about the Unicron Trilogy? Those were Japanese-made (with help from Hasbro).

Though, many consider The Headmasters to be awful, even worse that RiD.

Sorry for the delay. For some reason, the room I am using has wi-fi issues. And it is one room away from mine (which is being repainted).

In all cases, I have to say that the Unicron Trilogy is the worse of all the series. The first series was said to be decent, but did not do much. The other two series had numerous issues, namely story and character development. And even if you watch all three subbed, you will find that CarRobots was better handled as it was aimed at 8-10 (or 12) year olds, and actually used character development while promoting their wares. So with Antron's case, I bet that if he had seen it 13-15ish years sooner and was fluent in Japanese, he would have liked it.

But that is my speculation, as I have been trying to watch these kids with my inner child... As well as the idea of watching them with my future child(ren).

As for the rest... All I can say time and time again - Look at those involved, look at the year it was created, and look at their target audience. But I guess hating a series aimed at the same age group, and includes one of the writers who had worked on Mobile Suit Gundam is an American thing (which is ironic, as I am an American but started to like Masterforce, thanks to the prequel manga story - And its artist).

Oh, and Sabr? I think you would love Keroro Gunso. Just not as Sgt. Frog. Sgt. Frog pretty much snubs the Japanese version in certain crucial parts. Which is pretty much FUNimation snubbing SUNRISE while appeasing those who prefer the type of anime I have mentioned. Which is a shame, as they do excellent work when handling Toei and Kadokawa series. But despite that. Sgt. Keroro is a total Gunpla otaku, and has a room dedicated to Gundam scenes. Plus, the one part I think you will compare to Pretender technology is their "human body" suits, which cover all but their heads.

KUMA-NIN Maximus wrote:In all cases, I have to say that the Unicron Trilogy is the worse of all the series. The first series was said to be decent, but did not do much. The other two series had numerous issues, namely story and character development.

I honestly enjoyed Cybertron quite well. I felt that Aramda had lot of potential, but its English dub really hurt it, among other things like those dreadful children it had. Energon also had some interesting ideas, but those were far and few, never developed, and only about 5% of a mostly irredeemable series.

The only real issues I ever had with Cybertron were its overuse of stock footage transformations, its repetitive Speed Planet races and Giant Planet layer trek, and its heavy reliance on Burning Justice during points at which it seemed impractical.

But, thankfully the English dub attempted to remedy two of these, with filling in the stock footage with additional dialogue that at times felt either funny or simply relieving that they managed to fill in the dead air of the stock footage with something, and their rewriting in the Burning Justice moments to either make sense (saying the power is energon, Primus' power, Megatron's Armor of Unicron, etc.) or be nothing short of a miracle that they are in complete and total awe at. The races and layers, however, couldn't be fixed.

And Cybertron had cool ideas with the black hole threatening to consume Cybertron and reality itself, the TFs going to many planets to meet other TFs, the Planet X subplot, and more.

And it gave us a fantastically ambitious Starscream, a lively youthful Hot Shot, a savage yet honorable and morally-conflicted Scourge, the wise and powerful Vector Prime, the competent female leader Override, a fun DJ Soundwave (even though it was an act), a monster hunter Crosswise (almost said "Smokescreen" since those Kids WB episode airings are still firm in my memory), a cocky yet clever Wing Saber, and more.

Of all the TF cartoons, it remains my 5th favorite series, though since both the 3rd and 4th places consist of ties, so it's more like in 8th place.

I guess Headmasters for me was better because I was more familiar with the toys as for RID I was not. As far as the UT goes, Armada was OK. Like the previous poster I felt the translation suffered. I re-watched it recently and there's just dialogue that doesn't seem to match the animation sometimes.

Energon was a great idea, I think the cgi was a little week in it though. I really liked Cybertron. It was the current show when I started collecting and I thought it looked great. I loved my TFs as a child, my dad would always do Optimus and Grimlock voices. Transformers are responsible for some of the highlights of my childhood. It was that show and finding a Universe/Energon Arcee at the Family Dollar that got me collecting. So I'm a little partial. Alternators were floating around then too. I really liked them, what they represented. It would have been SUPER AWESOME to have had an Alternators toon.

I haven't gotten to verify the BW episodes I have but I do appear to have all of them. (TF Wiki) When I get into them I'll have to let you know.

I found them all on a hub somewhere and I'm just assuming by the labeling and completeness of the rest of the collection that these will be OK. TV-Nihon is the versions I have of GF/HM/ect.. GBTHW sounds familiar as well but like I said I do appear to have all of the episodes. I've had them less than a year and it may be DVD rips I have. Now I'm curious. I'll try to poke into them this weekend.

Antron wrote:I haven't gotten to verify the BW episodes I have but I do appear to have all of them. (TF Wiki) When I get into them I'll have to let you know.

Just so we're clear, we are still talking about the cel-shaded Japanese ones and not the CGI American Beast Wars cartoon, correct?

As far as the two Japanese ones go, Beast Wars II had 43 episodes, and Beast Wars Neo had 35 episodes. If the ones you got match those episode numbers, then most of them are probably Japanese raws without any subs.

Antron wrote:Those Beast Wars are in fact in Japanese. No subs or dubs.

In that case, hope you understand Japanese (in which case I envy you if you do).

Nope, not yet. I have some upgrades coming in though so with a soldering iron and a little luck maybe I can learn Japanese. LOL. I have just begun to study reading Japanese for my own personal entertainment. I'm nowhere in the venture but I now understand the difference between the 3 alphabets, if that's what you call them.

Antron wrote:Those Beast Wars are in fact in Japanese. No subs or dubs.

In that case, hope you understand Japanese (in which case I envy you if you do).

Nope, not yet. I have some upgrades coming in though so with a soldering iron and a little luck maybe I can learn Japanese. LOL. I have just begun to study reading Japanese for my own personal entertainment. I'm nowhere in the venture but I now understand the difference between the 3 alphabets, if that's what you call them.

Disregarding whatever "GO!" is and what little we know about it, I'd like to throw my 2 cents in on the subject of Japanese TF series', whilst hoping I don't sound like a flaming weeaboo... which I probably will.

Ahem: BURNING JUSTICE FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!111!!!!1!!!

yeah, I could articulate my feelings a little better on the matter, but I can't be assed. I'll just say I've been waiting for Japan to pick up the ball again ever since I watched the penultimate episode of Galaxy Force.